The Weird and The Wonderful

The Weird and The Wonderful forum is a place to post Coding Horrors, Worst Practices, and the occasional flash of brilliance.

We all come across code that simply boggles the mind. Lazy kludges, embarrassing mistakes, horrid workarounds and developers just not quite getting it. And then somedays we come across - or write - the truly sublime.

Post your Best, your worst, and your most interesting. But please - no programming questions . This forum is purely for amusement and discussions on code snippets. All actual programming questions will be removed.

Weird: Very confusing Base64 problem (includes quiz)

raddevus21-Jul-22 11:12

raddevus

21-Jul-22 11:12

Do you see what is wrong with the Base64 encoded data (below)?*

*Find answer at bottom of this entry.

Also, don't try decoding the data because it is non-sense because it is base64 of encrypted data.

Had a problem where my Base64 data (all of a sudden) was being corrupted.
However, it is very subtle (see ANSWER at bottom). HINT: Just one char was being corrupted.

Data Only Corrupted After Posting
I couldn't understand this. The data (before I posted it was completely fine).
Only after posting data did it get corrupted (and it's not a URL-encoding thing).
Actually, that is incorrect. The data is posted to the web site & saved in DB with no corruption.
Only after the data is returned as a part of a JSON object is the base64 data corrupted. CRazy!! Confused | :confused:

I Finally Found This Argument At Github - Spoiler ALERT!!
+ sign is changing into \u002B using JsonSerializer.Serialize · Issue #35281 · dotnet/runtime · GitHub[^]

This is a very WEIRD (and obscure) thing. I can't believe I finally figured this out. Now, I will have to implement a fix. Discovering the problem was extremely difficult because the base64 data is upwards of 40K.

Have any of you seen this?

Copy Code

jHx4uha8sCRyiqv8nRVJpRoQPx45ghciXg6PJb8qrxORwmMTN6cLlDIh4PVZenZvh3saEtlGAxZlI2Wm\u002BumDIiIs/r9vU5XgnMMF\u002Bk5TnvzNSLvYaTY41mS4FNZ8yshdVFn\u002Bq2UolJzz8ldlycDW1a7JfWKS88XNaBVgbZYjrSquDjCHOwIY8yGzxHnv70BDHEgHz6IUtZ7gEzKQ/dlVabYe7D2/QfU0Mtobx/LVkxa/oiujTaoiCLIQdkmALGbQqj/rtdLlOzKWjqLMpa/EhwGTA5unrEJMR\u002BDgKIJ5kxwoffKwVeydXlz1GY9WcyJrFf1xJr2CmKhUsbbXQQ0Qcgi80FJcupEQr\u002Bd4jclGeVbyFla40Ncm7ZjDeRVQ5coP2n1VyHTosWpvk7WqDIv1URbD8Xx3qfrXr2LsbS\u002Bzhe67bXNv4wekJfkvfxY8dh4Qjz9ZW0PBwIgW6KdtmCEKsURRWl5m8OvLxkL8iWuXwG\u002BdQeTSJb0Ew/AohuSpuiSeV5REkEagMoGnHdV6sLGo8kselY4sh1SqtIdoRq5E6nO60V7kzcCfm4MgdmwWEuRRxtJeeEl59dDvvOOOefbYCHLWGONVQ4/hpLPxnU2beyPoz7j9oWz2hIMgjTlQgzupzIZzjdzu7O62PDRorm8rVnZAmLFnNbAmFCzpgLsB1HZrTL5/MXeEdUz2WuKjJPAi4q\u002BnPddo0xm6bkvKXoGWJbwFAoxaWD7hffcvuurAkIqPH2S8CgP3cmnLiM6Qg65k7Sy51T81ab92g92rBJ\u002B8BFVPCDVdGsy6BblFP2/KQ6\u002BoCllRD\u002BIqNqIfdfzmJUp2WEEpviwP\u002B9IhGuGC2flCrMclKaAmTuZLyijgQkC2\u002BEb7hU5GoA8h5ic3hOFSOhmUo20/LIiIIj3jUanfxJLLW6MTY3c5WNJlNUz0ucwGRUNqO2VMxsPnWp05M3aGU4kxYIracZwmvqeQKgGX59vhPo5GhmFxZroVkSO7\u002BEOWRG/J1et/5dFslN3dZDLFSIBvrA5pJF7BuEZPsbcWTOWxnrWZl\u002BeGouVoC8KfEfsCgZkbBKB1bR2ark7vZl6aEP1OrjuNonHGODutBaogq6V39T/4w86gz2Ow3qDfbGJh2nqJbE2JTNUbN/UbsEmKfdz7JC2jDjTZ7M3Cl0LXsLZM67\u002BFYZxvBzyKUsjXV3S1eHqLrk/i98yWs9YbSEHurIb7wggOac3MlzLz\u002BYCye2UAQxVE6vt66cv3wXBXLLlfwy3rBNVqSLv60//io\u002BKEnKxF0rIYhb6Sm8TV7ErdDwSBe0sspIcbkfdR4ylVoXbR1PaoqCS0KISqNWXR9x4lz8jnhTKtKLZvphKsVE9GIpGAJrcdmfjoWIMXkmP1TMfiQ/xWl3v/s6FNnbXbSjx3L10\u002BSQ8Ha2ZbDuZNVyDYc8vaCQY6Wr4MywCnqaTbQcJ3DvLJKbmysUMpHd7h1U\u002B4k64cFJ2ltWoBr/btUKH1T/lNV8xtIHo7WISECX0K85WeTxCHR36GUzo9WopffO2hpzAm8bEzKJLug5Qm5D0ej491ep28sSW2cx0Ntq7gdyEITYWRP79qIlvLc/w0wLcHEbRPJd\u002Bwx5QKpOA1oaWEqkpgVJDw00D0pqjM35an/xJdEu78wbM0grn3Ns74SeqjRvft4wvVjZ/

ANSWER
If you guessed that the \u002B should actually be a + character, you are amazing!!

Re: Weird: Very confusing Base64 problem (includes quiz)

Randor 21-Jul-22 21:40

Randor

21-Jul-22 21:40

Roger,

I'm sure that you've figured this out by now. That escaping behavior is actually in the JSON specification.

RFC 8259 - Section 7[^]

Re: Weird: Very confusing Base64 problem (includes quiz)

raddevus22-Jul-22 2:50

raddevus

22-Jul-22 2:50

Yeah, it seems like it is a normal thing. It seems that it was just altering a test I had (that didn't parse it as json) that used the base64 encoded data and that is where I was seeing the issue.
It's part of a larger challenge so it looks like it was a false-positive for me.
Thanks

Re: Weird: Very confusing Base64 problem (includes quiz)

Marc Clifton4-Aug-22 4:24

Marc Clifton

4-Aug-22 4:24

Gads, I remember dealing with a similar issue. Turned out the issue was that the front-end wasn't using

encodeURIComponent

in the utility app for setting password.

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GetAssemblyVersion, VB style

Saša Ćetković27-Jun-22 3:03

Saša Ćetković

27-Jun-22 3:03

Copy Code

Public Shared Function GetAssemblyVersion() As String
    Dim version() As String = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetName().Version.ToString().Split("."c)
    Return version(0) & "." & version(1) & "." & version(2) & "." & version(3)
End Function

Dijkstra was right...

Re: GetAssemblyVersion, VB style

Southmountain1-Jul-22 12:55

Southmountain

1-Jul-22 12:55

anything special? sorry I am not good at VB...

diligent hands rule....

Re: GetAssemblyVersion, VB style

Saša Ćetković2-Jul-22 4:07

Saša Ćetković

2-Jul-22 4:07

It would be almost the same in C#. He could have already gotten everything at Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetName().Version, but he continued to get a string and split it, as any VB6 programmer would prefer. And then, in the next line, he joined the strings with the same character on which he split them, meaning he already had the same result on ToString().

Re: GetAssemblyVersion, VB style

Southmountain2-Jul-22 10:47

Southmountain

2-Jul-22 10:47

thanks for explaining it to me Rose | [Rose]

diligent hands rule....

Re: GetAssemblyVersion, VB style

dan!sh 19-Jul-22 23:32

dan!sh

19-Jul-22 23:32

Saša Ćetković wrote:
as any VB6 programmer would prefer

Remind me why. I have not touched VB6 since 2008.

"It is easy to decipher extraterrestrial signals after deciphering Javascript and VB6 themselves.", ISanti[^]

Re: GetAssemblyVersion, VB style

Saša Ćetković21-Jul-22 21:18

Saša Ćetković

21-Jul-22 21:18

I noticed a pattern that they really like string manipulation - using magic strings, concatenating HTML as strings in ASP Classic, concatenating SQL...

"This is a rare event"

Marc Clifton7-May-22 8:33

Marc Clifton

7-May-22 8:33

For giggles I programmatically created a query that had a huge number of unions. The full message from SQL Server was:

Quote:
The query processor ran out of internal resources and could not produce a query plan. This is a rare event and only expected for extremely complex queries or queries that reference a very large number of tables or partitions.

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Re: "This is a rare event"

Slacker00710-May-22 10:04

Slacker007

10-May-22 10:04

I believe SQL Server has a maximum query memory of 2 gigs. You obviously surpassed that with all the unions. I believe all unions are read into memory.

I am guessing here, I could be wrong.

Re: "This is a rare event"

jsc4211-May-22 0:17

jsc42

11-May-22 0:17

Strawbs - Part Of The Union - YouTube[^]

Re: "This is a rare event"

MarkTJohnson11-May-22 3:23

MarkTJohnson

11-May-22 3:23

There are also only 100 levels of recursion in a cursor. Found that out in the poast two weeks when a client's process failed on a stored procedure that was last edited a decade ago.

I’ve given up trying to be calm. However, I am open to feeling slightly less agitated.

Re: "This is a rare event"

PIEBALDconsult14-May-22 14:20

PIEBALDconsult

14-May-22 14:20

Or a recursive CTE, but you can increase that I think.

Re: "This is a rare event"

PIEBALDconsult14-May-22 14:24

PIEBALDconsult

14-May-22 14:24

I never make a large JOIN , I split it up:
A JOIN B JOIN C JOIN D
becomes:
( ( A JOIN B ) JOIN C ) JOIN D

Re: "This is a rare event"

Marc Clifton15-May-22 7:04

Marc Clifton

15-May-22 7:04

Oh that's interesting! I'll have to try that!

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Re: "This is a rare event"

Jörgen Andersson17-May-22 23:52

Jörgen Andersson

17-May-22 23:52

For inner joins the optimizer will disregard any order of the joins, or any parentheses for that matter.
If you want to force a specific order there's a hint for that: OPTION (FORCE ORDER)

For outer joins this is not the case, they will happen in the relative order specified.

Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello

Re: "This is a rare event"

Craig Robbins27-Jun-22 14:01

Craig Robbins

27-Jun-22 14:01

Question for you?

Can you verify this 1) uses less memory and/or 2) improves performance time?

Thanks! Craig

Re: "This is a rare event"

PIEBALDconsult27-Jun-22 14:41

PIEBALDconsult

27-Jun-22 14:41

It has significantly reduced execution time in many cases.
Your mileage will vary.

Re: "This is a rare event"

Duncan Edwards Jones16-May-22 7:05

Duncan Edwards Jones

16-May-22 7:05

This message is only shown to the SELECT few...

Re: "This is a rare event"

pkfox30-Jun-22 22:36

pkfox

30-Jun-22 22:36

That's bang out of ORDER Poke tongue | ;-P

Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a Ride!" - Hunter S Thompson - RIP

Re: "This is a rare event"

Member 150787164-Jul-22 17:10

Member 15078716

4-Jul-22 17:10

What version of SQL was that?

What was the count of unions that caused this?

Thank you.

Re: "This is a rare event"

Ron Anders21-Jul-22 5:56

Ron Anders

21-Jul-22 5:56

Which means "Stop doing this to us in here!" Mad | :mad:

Just for more gig-gles, sent it over and over and see is the "rare event" message changes.

Tell me what's wrong with the following

Gary R. Wheeler4-May-22 5:35

Gary R. Wheeler

4-May-22 5:35

Copy Code

struct Record
{
    unsigned short      Length;
    unsigned long       ObjectId;
    LevelType           Level;
    unsigned long       SendBlock;
    struct
    {
        unsigned long   SendBlock       : 31;
        unsigned long   SendBlockMarker :  1;
    };
    __time32_t          SendTime;
    struct
    {
        Type            SendType        : 16;
        unsigned        SendVersion     : 16;
    };
    unsigned long       SendNumber;
    union
    {
        struct
        {
            char            Message[1];
        } Version0;
        struct
        {
            __int64         EventTime;
            char            Message[1];
        } Version1;
    };
};

:face-palm:

Software Zen: delete this;

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